“At the top of the hour,” Michael agreed.
Tina checked her watch. She had seven minutes to prepare. Unclipping her own mike, she went out to the tiny front porch, where the midday sun was peeling the last of the paint from the railings, the steps, and the clapboard siding of the house itself. “This guy’s some sicko,” she said softly to Michael, hoping she was casting her voice low enough so the two women in the house wouldn’t hear her. If she was going to get the best reaction from Jillian, she didn’t want the girl to have even a minute to think about what was going on. “What’s the name of the new victim, the one with the lips? And give me the details. Fast.”
“Natalie Owen,” Michael replied, then filled Tina in on what had happened the night before. “You’re not going to have a lot of time — I’m giving you forty seconds at the top of the hour, but that’s it.”
“It’ll be enough,” Tina said. “Thanks.” She folded her phone, slipped it into her pocket, then went back into the house, where she gave Jillian a reassuring smile as she clipped the mike back onto her blouse.
“A slight change in plans,” she said. “We’re going to do some of the interview live, and broadcast the rest on Sunday.” She drank the rest of the water, checked her makeup, then patted the sweat off Jillian Oglesby’s lips. She was just finishing up getting the girl posed next to her by the fireplace when Pete Biner held up five fingers, then started dropping them down, one every second.
“This is Tina Wong, reporting live from Bakersfield, where I’m interviewing Jillian Oglesby, who I believe was attacked last year by the same man who has now killed at least five women in California, the latest being Natalie Owen, a nurse murdered in the carport of her Studio City apartment last night.” She turned to Jillian just as the reality of her words sank into the girl, whose face had become a mask of horror. “He took the girl’s lips this time, Jillian. What do you think is going on in this man’s mind?”
“I–I—what—” Jillian floundered, which was exactly what Tina had been hoping for.
She turned back to the camera. “This man, whoever he is, seems to be roaming around our state, taking parts from girls as if he’s trying to build himself whatever his idea of the perfect woman is. It’s as if Dr. Frankenstein has risen from his grave and is back in his laboratory. But my question is this: why have the police been unable to stop this…” Tina paused as if searching for the words she had in fact already planned to say, then went on. “…monster,” she finished. “How many women must be robbed not only of their lives, but of their very features before this killer — this Frankenstein Killer — is stopped? For the latest on all these killings, tune to Channel 3 at eight P.M. on Sunday, when I’ll bring you a full report on what has been going on that the police haven’t been telling us about. Now, back to the studio for a traffic update. This is Tina Wong, live from Bakersfield.”
As the live feed ended, Tina signaled Pete to keep taping and eased Jillian Oglseby back to the sofa. Seating herself beside Jillian, Tina took her hand. “What can you tell me, Jillian? Do you remember any of it?”
The girl nodded, her eyes glazed. “I–I was out jogging, just like I always do. And he hit me on the head from behind, and — and—” Her voice broke, then: “He slit my throat.” Jillian pulled aside the collar of her blouse to show a wide scar that extended all the way around the front of her throat. “And then he cut off my eyebrows. It happened so fast I couldn’t even scream, but then another jogger came by and he ran away.” Her voice dropped to a faint whisper. “I almost bled to death.”
“Brave girl,” Tina said as Pete narrowed the camera’s focus to fill the frame with Jillian’s face. As Pete held the shot, Tina went on. “What are the police doing to capture this murderer and stop his rampage of terror? Not enough. Not nearly enough. This is Tina Wong, keeping you up to the minute on the Frankenstein Killer, who is still at large.”
The red light went out.
“Good piece,” Pete said.
Tina’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Michael again. She flipped it open.
“It works,” Tina responded, waving to Jillian to stay where she was so Pete could film her from other angles.
“So now you’re going to need all new graphics.”
“That’s true,” Tina said. “Would you mind getting that ball rolling? We should start running promos tonight. I’m going to be here another hour finishing this interview, so I’ll see you late this afternoon.”
Michael sighed.
And Tina smiled.
The Frankenstein Killer.
It had been a stroke of genius, and it would stick. And from now on Michael Shaw would have to give her anything she wanted. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if the networks started calling even before the special aired.
“Okay, Pete,” she said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
MICHAEL SHAW NEEDED at least two more hands to handle everything on his desk, and four would have been even better. And almost all of it had to do with Tina Wong.
Since she was still on her way back from Bakersfield — and caught in traffic, which she’d called three times to report so far, never failing to mention that she was going to talk to “the network” about his refusal to provide her with a helicopter — he had to approve the promos for her special even before she saw them. Knowing Tina Wong, that meant she would do whatever she wanted in the way of reediting, using his preapproval as her license. But after her live remote broadcast this morning, the switchboard had been flooded with calls from people who were certain they knew who the Frankenstein Killer was and who wanted to be interviewed on air by Tina. And every other station in the area was picking up the story, though Tina possessed far more information than anyone else.
Which meant Tina had the whip hand, at least for now.
Michael buzzed his intern and asked him to bring another double latte from the coffee kiosk down the block, knowing he would be surviving on them at least until Tina’s special aired, and probably for a week afterward.
He leaned back in his chair and gazed morosely at the stack of other work that was overflowing his in-box and at the pile of unanswered phone messages that was growing by the minute. He rotated his aching neck in a futile attempt to get a couple of the kinks out, stretched his back, then reached for the stack of messages and began sorting through them, discarding at least half of them as nothing more than annoyances.
When two brisk raps on his door interrupted his concentration, he looked up, to remind his secretary that he’d ordered no interruptions for the next fifteen minutes—
“Michael Shaw?” one of them asked, cutting into his thoughts before he’d begun to envision upbraiding her.
“Isn’t that what it says on the door?” he snapped.
“We won’t take much of your time,” the second man responded. “I’m Evan Sands and this is Rick McCoy.” Both men reached into the inside pockets of their suit jackets and flipped open glittering LAPD badges for his inspection. “We need to talk to you about the allegations your reporter is making on the air.”
“My reporter?” Michael said, deciding to play dumb even though he of course knew who they were talking about — the very thorn that had been irritating his side for the last several months.
“Tina Wong,” McCoy chimed in, in case he hadn’t figured out who they were here about. “She seems to have taken it upon herself to fabricate connections between murder cases that may not be connected at all.”
“Which is a huge problem for us,” Sands picked up, going on with a routine Michael was sure they’d used before. “First off, every loony in town is confessing to these crimes. But that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that your Miss Wong is creating panic in the streets. Our job is hard enough without a newscaster acting like no woman is safe anywhere in the entire area.”
“Really,” Michael said, leaning back in his swivel chair and folding his arms across his chest. He might not like Tina, but being annoyed was one thing, gagging her another. “And exactly how do you think I can help you with that?”
“We want a little more responsibility in reporting from this station,” Sands said. “Tina Wong is out of line.”
“She’s reporting what she’s found,” Michael replied. “No more, and no less. And in case you’ve forgotten, the government does not control the press in this country. And certainly the LAPD doesn’t. We’re responsible to the
